Os Guinness is an author, a social critic, and Senior Fellow of the EastWest Institute in New York. Great-great grandson of Arthur Guinness, the Dublin brewer, he was born in China in World War Two where his parents were medical missionaries. A witness to the climax of the Chinese revolution in 1949, he was expelled with many other foreigners in 1951 and returned to Europe where he was educated in England. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of London and his D.Phil in the social sciences from Oriel College, Oxford. Os has written or edited more than twenty five books, including The American Hour, Time for Truth, The Call, Invitation to the Classics, Long Journey Home, and Unspeakable: Facing up to the challenge of evil. His latest book The Case for Civility – and why our future depends on it was published by Harper One in January 2008.

Previously, Os was a freelance reporter with the BBC. Since coming to the United States in 1984, he has been a Guest Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Studies and a Guest Scholar and Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution. From 1986 to 1989, Os served as Executive Director of the Williamsburg Charter Foundation, a bicentennial celebration of the First Amendment. In this position he helped to draft the Williamsburg Charter and co-authored the public school curriculum Living With Our Deepest Differences. From 1991 to 2004 he was a senior fellow at the Trinity Forum, and a frequent speaker and seminar leader at political and business conferences in both the United States and Europe. As a European visitor to this country and a great admirer but detached observer of American culture today, he stands in the long tradition of outside voices who have contributed so much to America’s ongoing discussion about the state of the union. He lives with his wife Jenny in McLean, Virginia.

2 Comments

brad
on July 2, 2012 at 6:13 pm

Os articulated one reason why I’m personally opposed to politics: the motivation of fear and deep insecurity. (On the flip side, if motivation is coming from a place of security, and a deep desire for responsible social polity, participation in politics cannot be a public platform for strident evangelism.)

But there’s an even bigger one!

“Christian” doesn’t universally define morality, and it is historically aspects of morality that the church has chosen to elevate as its “principles”. I do not endorse Christians getting into politics to build their platform for their particular sacred cow, and who then claim to speak on Christianity’s behalf. When people do that, or when Christians expect that of their Christian politicians, the “war” must be fought internally (within the church) and externally (with the society), and neither is very useful.

Christians have a pretty atrocious history, on pretty much every scale (family, church and state), when we use God’s name in vain to claim power. I’m immensely grateful to live in a place and time that is (mostly) a respite from that!

I agree with Os’ perspective on calling, freedom (for vs from), and that keeping a perspective on the Kingdom is the way forward. He then frays that point a little with his comment on chasing relevance. I would instead take his point even further — people need to feel more freedom and more impetus to figure out God’s call on their lives, in a greater variety of directions, while maintaining their humility and Christ-centredness. I believe that is how God is going to organically shape the world.

I was a bit disappointed with Os Guinness in this interview for a few reasons.

First is that he doesn’t seem to understand libertarianism when he says it is unsustainable. I think he is mistaking it for “libertinism” which is something quite different. Libertarianism is a political ideology with the underlying foundation that the use of aggressive force is wrong. Libertinism is the based on the idea that most moral restraints are illegitimate and are fine to ignore. It seems that if he is going to criticize libertarianism in his book, he should at least know what it is.

Second is that he believes that the Industrial Revolution was one of the worst periods in human history. This seems quite amazing if one compares the lot of people before it to after it. According to Henson in “The Effects of the Industrial Revolution on Women and Children,” in 1750, England’s population was 6 million, 9 million in 1800, and 12 million in 1820: a population growth unprecedented in any era. This means that most people alive today would not be so if not for industrialization. As well, “‘The proportion of those born in London dying before five years of age’ fell from 74.5 percent in 1730-49 to 31.8 percent in 1810-29. Children hitherto would have died in infancy now had a chance for survival.”

Third is that he blames economic disparities on too much economic freedom. Such claims seriously put into doubt his credibility on the subject. Could it be that governments privilege the well-connected and wealthy? Trillion dollar bailouts of banks is not a feature of laissez faire free markets. With all of the corporatism in the US, it’s hard to say it even remotely resembles a freed market.

Fourth (and this is more of a disappointment regarding Phil) was that as Os Guinness was talking about the decline of the American Empire, that thousands of overseas troops in US military bases in hundreds of countries were coming home out of economic necessity, Phil took that as a cause for sadness and disappointment. This is a GREAT thing! Besides the hundreds of billions in wasted money, the US military can become one that actually protects Americans! As well, this can only improve America’s image in the world. I’m surprised how little applied the Golden Rule is in this circumstance: would you want some other country’s military setting up bases where you live or in your country? It is this issue that American Christians disappoint me the most on. While they are quite zealous in defending the lives of the unborn, they seemingly couldn’t be more apathetic to the lives of the thousands of civilians killed by the US military overseas.